Integrated circuit devices, also known as semi-conductors, are used throughout the electronics industry. The importance of the integrated circuit device resides in its multiple and varied uses. They are typically used in printed circuit boards of various configurations. Because a multiplicity of these integrated circuit devices is, as a matter of course, needed to assemble a printed circuit board, and because location of placement is often critical, means to handle the multiplicity of these devices quickly and accurately is important.
The small size of the integrated circuit device with its fragile leads requires the use of precision and soft-handling instruments to allow for its placement in a particular position on a printed circuit board. Apparatus capable of precise placement are known in the art. The small size of the integrated circuit device, in combination with the small size of the leads extending from the main body portion of the circuit device, increases the need for precise placement in order to insure correct connections be formed between the integrated circuit device and the host printed circuit board on which the device is to be mounted.
Prior apparatus for the placement of such devices have used hollow probes with a connected vacuum source. Such a structure utilizes the hollow probe as a straw-type device which picks up and places the device by application of the vacuum to temporarily hold the integrated circuit device to be mounted to the straw-like device. Once the integrated circuit device is maneuvered to the position at which it is ultimately intended to be mounted, the vacuum is either withdrawn or the integrated circuit device is affixed to the printed circuit board by attachment means. The method of attachment usually involves soldering of the leads to their connections on the printed circuit board.
A problem with this type of prior art structure has been the inflexibility of the vacuum probes to adapt to integrated circuit devices of varying sizes. In the prior art, when integrated circuit devices of a relatively smaller or larger size than the preceding device handled are to be maneuvered, removal of the particular hollow probe previously used and installation of a different hollow probe of a variant size is required before continuing. This process obviously results in time lost in the reconfiguring of the vacuum probe before continuing with the placement of integrated circuit devices of the new size. Apparatus that would provide for automatically adapting an electronic component placement device to fit various sized integrated circuit devices would be an improvement over the prior art. Additionally, apparatus utilizing a common vacuum source with automatically adaptable vacuum probe heads would save time and thus speed up the manufacture of printed circuit boards.